Notably, left-leaning Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has rejected a suit brought forward by New York City employees who contested the firing of employees who chose not to adhere to a vaccine mandate.
Sotomayor’s rejection of the appeal was announced Thursday afternoon.
In the class action suit, New York City workers who lost their jobs due to their vaccination status claimed their civil rights were abridged, and government officials overstepped in requiring vaccinations even after studies showed vaccines were ineffective in preventing transmission or contraction of COVID-19.
According to the Washington Examiner, the suit was brought forward by “firefighters, public school teachers, law enforcement officers, sanitation workers, and a group called New Yorkers for Religious Liberty.” The group claimed New York City’s vaccine policy compromises religious constitutional protections.
The group claimed that the city wrongly required “workers to choose between their careers or taking the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Sotomayor, who oversees “emergency motions” arising from New York, dismissed the application for a hearing without referring the matter to the full court.
Surprising many civil rights activists, the high court has declined to rule on several vaccine-related challenges. According to the Examiner, challenges include “a lawsuit against Maine’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, several other worker challenges to New York City’s mandate, and one by a group of Indiana University students.”
Earlier this year, the high court blocked President Joe Biden’s administration’s “vaccine-or-test” plan for larger businesses and allowed federally funded medical facilities to continue requiring employees to be vaccinated.
Notably, a lower court recently ruled that New York City’s vaccine mandate and firing of employees were unconstitutional — and ordered the city to reinstate terminated employees with back pay.
In a similar ruling, Staten Island Superior Court judge ruled that fired sanitation workers must be reinstated with back pay.
New York City government officials have appealed the two lower court decisions.
The case referred to in the emergency hearing is presently making its way through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams was dismissive in his comments regarding the lower court’s decision, saying that reinstating fired city employees “was not on the radar.”
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